Monster Madness – Knight of the Red Scale – Part One

Through the heavy layers of her ironclad armor, the brave knight could feel the intense heat inching its way through the slits of her armor. Even though she was at least a mile away from her destination, she had to begin preparing herself for the heat surge that would surely make this current heat seem like a mild summer’s warmth. Before taking a step further though the lush greenery of the forest our young knight, Valkyria, stops underneath the shade of a tall tree to check her supplies in a small sack tied around her waist.

“Medicinal herbs, extra bandage wraps, sharpening stone, and…” Searching through the sack, Valkyria reaches into the bottom and gets a slight chill reaching through her gloves. She grabs at where the chill is coming from and pulls out a small glass vial. In it contains a thick, jelly-like blue substance with white crystals formed at the rounded end of the glass.

Even though she’s only holding it in her hand, Valkyria can already feel a wave of soothing, cold chills spreads across her armor, “Wow, I knew this stuff was effective, but I didn’t even drink this yet and I can still feel it working it.”She looks up from the vial and focuses on the path that she needs to travel. Just off in the distance, the forest breaks way and gives sight to a massive mountain range, seeming like its peaks ascend into the red sky that lingers above it. She follows the red sky and can see where it transitions into the calming blue sky above the forest.

“Just a bit further now,” she says as she puts the vial back into the sack and continues walking. “If I can find enough lava ore, it should help the blacksmith reforge and repair my equipment. As much as I appreciate this current set he’s letting me borrow, I’m not use to such heavy armor.”

More suited to small chain mail armor with steel gauntlets and greaves, having a hefty and bulky breastplate weighs her down much more than she expected. With the extra weight, she’ll have to adapt to a new fighting style with the sheathed longsword strapped to her back. Pushing out more thoughts about her armor, Valkyria shakes her head and focuses on the mountain range in the distance, her armored feet crunching against dead, withered leaves.

As she continues her journey to the mountains the loud, singing animals of the forest slowly begin to fade out behind her and the forest begins to give way to a dry, brittle wasteland of stone. The woodland creatures flee and reptiles crawl along the heated earth that leads Valkyria to her destination.

When she reaches the base of the mountain, her forehead is drenched in sweat, having to endure all the way up until this point without drinking the vial. Exhausted, she takes a seat on the ground and takes out a small cloth to clean off her forehead, “Damn, I felt like I was going to pass out. Now’s the best time to take that stuff I have.”

Going back into the sack, she takes the cork out of the vial and quickly drinks its contents in one gulp. An arctic blast travels through her body, making it feel like her bare naked body is resting in a small pile of fresh fallen snow. With every breath she takes in, a chilling sensation rushes through her lungs and every breath out produces a small, thick mist. Even though the vial is very effective, its active time doesn’t last longer than an hour. Valkyria will need to gather the resources she came for and make it out of the mountains before it wears off, a simple task nonetheless.

With her objective clear, Valkyria takes out a hand-drawn map given to her by a local townsman who often wanders the area. In it, it points out different paths and possible blockages within the mountain range. It also highlights the largeest deposit for the material that she needs. While she’s looking over the map, she can her a voice calling out to her.

“You lost?”

Instantly jumping into an offensive mindset, Valkyria jumps to her feet and quickly unsheathes her sword, “Who goes there?”